Home Social Web Cafe Article Guest Contributor How SEO Is Just Like Working Out – And What You Can Learn From This Revelation

How SEO Is Just Like Working Out – And What You Can Learn From This Revelation

I spend most of my time working online and earning a living through writing, designing and doing SEO. When I’m not doing these things though often I’ll be working out and lifting weights down the gym which I have always found to be a great way to boost self-esteem, improve health and also just burn off some steam after a tough day. Interestingly though, more and more lately I find myself noticing similarities between these two activities. While the actual process may be very different (there is little that you need to lift doing SEO), the attitudes and the secrets to success are actually very similar. Let’s look at some of the lessons you can take from SEO and apply to getting into shape.

Constant Dedication

Many people trying to get into shape will come to me and ask and me to write training programs, which as a rule I will do happily. What frustrates me though is that over 50% of the time these people won’t bother to follow any of the advice I have carefully set out for them. Instead they’ll do it half-heartedly once or twice and then decide they’re too busy or too tired or some similar nonsense.

The point is, that succeeding in bodybuilding isn’t really about the minutiae of your training program – it’s just about doing one and sticking at it. Pretty much any routine that involves exertion is going to be good for you but you’re only going to see any results if you do it day in and day out for several months at least.

The same goes for SEO. So many people I know have attempted to create a successful website only to post two articles and get bored. Perhaps they come back to it every now and again, but never do they start to post regularly enough to build up any kind of readership or impress Google at all.

A Means to An End

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So where does this problem come from? In both cases it comes from the fact that people see these things as a means to an end. With bodybuilding the end is big muscles, and with SEO the end is web success. In each scenario there is no interest in the actual process – people don’t want to post lots of articles and they don’t want to lift lots of weights. It’s no wonder then that they can’t stay dedicated and that they get bored.

If you want to succeed in either of these fields, then you need to see the activities as ends in themselves and you need to concentrate on the process not the outcome. When you write an SEO goal it should not be to get to the top of a particular SERP as that’s not directly within your control, your goal should be to submit X amount of posts a week and to build X amount of high quality links. SEO should be the focus and a tool for helping you build your site and get more people to read your content. Don’t think about the money or the success – if you focus on taking each step at a time then those things will come.

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  • yes seo is not the event who did one time that you get long year, this is process of regularly work then you can stable in niche industry.. thanks for sharing with us..

  • Brian says:

    Great analogy! With both, you see no results without consistent effort and with both, you can make it look super easy after being consistent for a period of time.

    • Yes, our guest author did a great job. I, too, love the analogy. Sometimes that is what it takes to wrap our brains around it for that “Aha!” moment.

  • Your SEO fulfillment team is who you’ll be working with primarily through the course of your campaign and relying on to deliver results. Make sure you understand the structure of the team and who is responsible for the activities constituting your online marketing strategy. Who will be your point of contact at the company, and how often can you expect to talk to them about your campaign? Generally your team should give you a high-level overview of how things are doing a couple of times a month and be available in between to answer questions you may have about your campaign.

  • Vishal Verma says:

    seo comes with time and patience.
    nice article

  • Sudip Kumar says:

    WOW.. nice aricle but seo comes with experience

    • Packers and Movers chandigarh Apr 21, 2013 @ 21:47

      yes seo is not the event who did one time that you get long year, this is process of regularly work then you can stable in niche industry.. thanks for sharing with us..

      • Deborah E. Anderson Jun 5, 2013 @ 3:09

        Mike, our author, did a great job of illustrating SEO as a continuous improvement process, didn’t he? Thank you.

    • Brian Apr 29, 2013 @ 14:06

      Great analogy! With both, you see no results without consistent effort and with both, you can make it look super easy after being consistent for a period of time.

      • Deborah E. Anderson Jun 26, 2013 @ 13:54

        Yes, our guest author did a great job. I, too, love the analogy. Sometimes that is what it takes to wrap our brains around it for that “Aha!” moment.

    • Roger H. Walker May 4, 2013 @ 11:59

      Your SEO fulfillment team is who you’ll be working with primarily through the course of your campaign and relying on to deliver results. Make sure you understand the structure of the team and who is responsible for the activities constituting your online marketing strategy. Who will be your point of contact at the company, and how often can you expect to talk to them about your campaign? Generally your team should give you a high-level overview of how things are doing a couple of times a month and be available in between to answer questions you may have about your campaign.

    • Vishal Verma May 11, 2013 @ 5:12

      seo comes with time and patience.
      nice article

    • Sudip Kumar Feb 17, 2014 @ 6:38

      WOW.. nice aricle but seo comes with experience

      • Deborah E. Anderson Aug 7, 2014 @ 14:22

        Good point, Sudip. It is not like you wake up one day and find that you are a guru 🙂

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